


a little (oh, a little bit)

by catbrains



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Little/Caregiver Classifications, Angst, Fluff in the future, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Little Pietro Maximoff, Multi, Non-Sexual Age Play, Trauma, but what else is new in my fics, the avengers all taking care of pietro!, who’s really not having a great time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbrains/pseuds/catbrains
Summary: Classified as a Little at the age of seventeen, Pietro has been rejecting his Class for three years, and is particularly determined to hide it from his new teammates.It’s not a big deal.  He’s doing a pretty good job.  Until an injury during battle sends him into his first drop, and it quickly becomes apparent that those years rejecting his headspace don’t come without consequences.The Avengers are forced to make a decision.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in one day, believe it or not  
> i started it at 1am, wrote manically for an hour or so, slept a full night, then woke up and continued writing amidst some tv watching, and now it’s almost midnight, so i’m marginally convinced i was blessed with some sort of 24-hour writing fairy possession
> 
> i’ve read a couple fics in this sort of au, and they’ve always interested me, so it only seemed natural to try my hand at it  
> my attempt, of course, came out more angsty than anything as i got rather deep into thinking what pietro would be like as a classified little - i got immediately attached to the idea of his “don’t trust anyone” mentality getting flipped on its head and making him too desperate to trust anyone  
> i also got to thinking about how such a system would operate in sokovia during a war, and “badly” was the answer i came up with on that front, and then this was born
> 
> this has not been beta read, so i apologise for any mistakes  
> title is from hozier’s “someone new”
> 
> enjoy!

Really, it’s a wonder that Pietro had ever been Classified.

It’s a legal requirement in Sokovia, just like it is everywhere in the world, but the state of the country meant that it was often disregarded. People couldn’t get to the few Classification Centres that were still open, so the whole system fell apart. People were more concerned with survival, with protests and riots and trying to protect their families. There was no room for being Little in that.

And still, Pietro hadn’t managed to slip through the cracks. Of course, his and Wanda’s parents were long dead and the orphanage long left behind by the time they reached their seventeenth birthday, the minimum age for Classification, but Wanda was insistent. Not on herself getting Classified, but on Pietro getting Classified, because she knew.

She’d always known.

As much as Pietro hoped and prayed that it would be the opposite way around, as much as he tried so desperately to continue being the big brother, the protector, Wanda’s rock, he knew deep down what the results would be.

And sure enough, when Pietro and Wanda had dragged themselves down to the closest Classification Centre - a stout, stone public building with a large hole in the roof from a bomb and plaster everywhere inside - Wanda had seen exactly what she’d been expecting and Pietro had seen exactly what he’d been dreading.

Wanda Maximoff, Caregiver.

Pietro Maximoff, Little.

The inevitability of it, the knowledge, had not made it any easier to swallow. Pietro had thrown up as soon as the staff member said the words to him, and the woman had watched him with no small degree of awkwardness while Wanda held him as he sobbed and stroked his hair and cooed, perhaps already trying to encourage him into headspace.

It hadn’t worked. It had been tempting - like the pull of unconsciousness after acquiring a very severe injury. But Pietro hadn’t given in. 

He wouldn’t. He _couldn’t_.

He is Wanda’s big brother before he is anything else - certainly before he’s a Little.

For a long time, she hadn’t let it go. She’d tried every night while they sat huddled at the end of an alleyway or squatted in one of the many damaged, abandoned buildings that populated the streets of Sokovia. She’d ask him softly if she could hold him, if she could stroke his hair or if he wanted to play a game. Always something imagination-based, because they didn’t have anything else. No toys, no books, no stuffed animals. No pacifiers, no teethers, no diapers, no blankets.

Every time, without fail, he would refuse with a certain degree of coldness to his voice, and in his mind he’d once again crush whatever desires he felt for those things which he could not have. 

Wanda would end up falling asleep in his arms, tucked safe against his neck, and he’d tell himself that it felt right. That this was how it was meant to be.

And then the experiments happened. The torture and the cells and the endless suffering for their people, for their goal.

By the time Ultron came around, their Classifications had been all but forgotten. They had more important things on their mind, bigger things, and there was no time for feeling small when Pietro was meant to be seeing the bigger picture.

He couldn’t see it. He could never see it, particularly not as the people of Sokovia continued to suffer, as his sister and the Avengers struggled in the battle, as his country fell finally beyond help, and he’d been forced to let go of every piece of the world he’d ever known. He’d thought about those glimpses of Paris, of Germany, of Russia, of the world that he’d seen while he was running, thought about all of his people as refugees into these better lives, and then he’d thrown himself in front of a dozen bullets to save a hero and a little boy.

Suicide, he’d been convinced. A meaningless sacrifice of a worthless life for the survival of two worth far more.

And then he’d woken up in the cleanest hospital room he’d ever seen, surrounded by eight thousand machines with nine thousand needles and wires sticking out of him, and a woman named Helen Cho had muttered something in a language he didn’t know and told him that he was very, very lucky to be alive.

He didn’t think he felt lucky. He felt kind of like shit. He felt...small. The bed felt too big, the machines felt too scary, and he’d asked in English clumsier than he’d spoken since he was very young where his sister was.

She was a few floors down, but Doctor Cho had called her and she’d come running in, already in tears. She’d held Pietro, scooped him up in her arms as best she could and pet his hair and whispered sweet words in their native tongue until he’d let himself cry and finally let himself sleep, tucked up safe against her neck.

Doctor Cho, thankfully, hadn’t realised, and nor had the other Avengers as they’d trickled in to see him in couples. They were all kind, and made small talk with him about the dumb television shows he’d been watching during his forced inactivity and how hospital food is totally gross, right, even though everything that Pietro had been eating was Stark’s commissioned menu - the quality of which Sokovia couldn’t even dream of.

All Pietro wanted to eat was the cheese and tomato pasta his mother used to make, but he hadn’t eaten that since he was eight and he’d never eat anything like it ever again. His mother and his country and every ingredient she’d used - watery ready-made tomato purée and plasticky cheese and instant pasta shells all bought with scraped-together change - were all long gone.

He’d stopped eating then, because feeding himself made him feel tired and wrong and he couldn’t keep anything down anyway, and the doctors - not Cho anymore, she’d left once she’d pulled him away from the brink of gory demise - had just stuck another needle in him and given him his food that way.

It felt like the weeks after his Classification all over again. Craving attention and care, soft blankets and stuffed animals and maybe a pacifier so that he could stop chewing his lips until they bled, but the doctors and the Avengers didn’t know, and Wanda didn’t seem to either.

Perhaps she’d just thought that he was struggling to adjust the way that anybody would.

A part of Pietro almost resented her for it, but the rest forced him to be thankful.

As he recovered, he spent as much time recuperating physically as he did once again going through the motions of rejecting every thought of Littleness that encroached upon his mind.

By the time he was released and initiated as an Avenger, he’d felt confident that he was normal now too. Because there is a new bigger picture to see, new people to prove himself to, new things to protect, and he cannot risk losing anything else when he has already lost everything.

So he’ll keep doing what he’s been doing for the almost three years since his Classification, and be a big boy.

Which is a plan that works great until it doesn’t.

☁︎

It happens on a mission, because of course it does. And the worst part is that there isn’t a particular trigger, nothing huge or dramatic - nothing _really_ huge, at least.

Pietro is fast. He’s confident in his abilities in the field by now, after being trained under the watchful eyes of Hawkeye and Captain America, and he is an undeniable asset to any mission. He can disarm enemies, protect his teammates, plan out routes, scout for danger, take people down long before they know what hit them.

The only time most of them ever find out what hit them is when he sticks around to gloat. Get at least one good one-liner in, appreciate the look on their face, before he moves on to the next target.

Still, though, he’s not perfect. He’s not a hero like the others are, isn’t in control of himself and his abilities and his mind and his arrogance, and he fucks up sometimes.

A lot.

He’s in the field, in the midst of some battle on the streets of a city he hadn’t listened to the name of, and he just barely manages to scoop Wanda up and launch her out of the way to safety before a blast from some alien enemy is colliding with his torso and sending him sprawling backwards into a pile of rubble - a sequence of events that seem even more pathetic and helpless in his perception’s forced slow-motion.

The only other option would’ve been to share the impact with Wanda, but that was out of the question. He just barely manages to watch her stumble to regain her balance a little way away, confused, before his eyes roll back and his head drops to the concrete below him.

When his eyes open again, he’s lay on a stretcher in a plane, strapped down to keep him secure, and his first instinct upon realising that is to writhe helplessly against his bonds and then let out a desperate sort of hiccuping sob.

He doesn’t like being strapped down, he doesn’t like being lay on something stiff like this, and suddenly he’s thinking of the experiments again, of needles and scalpels and probing hands and his head spinning and spinning and spinning, and he _screams_ , writhing and wriggling like he could possibly escape from his bonds.

Perhaps he could, if he had a clear head and was utilising his speed, but he barely even knows what’s happening now. He’d been alone a moment ago, but suddenly there are people standing over him.

“Pietro, Pietro, hey, Speedy,” someone is saying, loud and frantic and right near his face. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Where does it hurt? Is it your back? Your neck? Fuck, I _told_ you we should’ve but a brace on him!”

His vision swims, and whoever says something back to that first person sounds just as loud but even angrier, and he lets out a loud sob as the arguing voices wash over him. He wants to be in someone’s arms. He wants to suck his thumb.

“Lemme _go_!” he manages to wail, the words coming out as one slurred mumble, and a second of silence greets him before someone speaks.

“We can’t do that. You’re injured, okay? We can’t let you get up in case something’s really wrong or if you pass out again—“

“ _Lemmego_!”

Louder this time, as if that’ll make the request viable. Tears are running all over his face, and he’s choking on mucus, and it feels so yucky, and he screams his request twice more before he finally breaks and screams, “Mama!”

He’s never said the word before like this. Never even really thought it, but he knows who he wants. He wants Wanda - Wanda, with her soothing voice and sweet smiles and gentle hands that she’d used every time she used to ask if she could take care of him in some way.

If he were in any clear state of mind, perhaps he’d appreciate the irony in him refusing her so fiercely so many times, only to be begging for her now in a moment when she is apparently not present.

As he is, no such detail clicks in his mind. He can’t even understand that Mama isn’t here, even as his eyes travel wildly around the seats ahead of him and he sees only one occupied with Banner, who looks stricken. Stood over him are Stark and Clint, both bruised and bloody and looking just as shocked, and Pietro really hates that they’re all just looking at him instead of _doing_ something.

“Mama,” he says again, sobbing, and it seems to click something in Clint’s mind into place. He crouches down so that he’s not quite looming over Pietro and strokes a hand over his hair, which feels tangled and sticky with something.

“Who’s Mama?” he asks carefully, still looking vaguely overwhelmed. “Wanda, right? You want Wanda? She’s...she’s not here right now, bud. She’s in the other jet, remember? But you’ll get to see her when we land in a little while. She’ll be waiting for you, I promise. But...but for now, you gotta calm down, okay, buddy? Can you do that for me?”

It’s the first time anyone’s ever really spoken to him like this, like he’s Little, and it’s comforting at the same time as overwhelming, because his head feels fuzzy and it’s like every cell in his body is screaming, reaching out desperately for more of that soothing tone, more of the assurance that he’s being taken care of.

He feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Papa,” he mumbles, hoarse with weak desperation, and Clint’s eyes widen just a little. Pietro looks to Stark again, who’s got his brows furrowed and his jaw tight in an unmistakable expression of deep concern. Clint looks at the other man too, searching his face for any direction, but Stark just shakes his head.

“Take care of him,” he orders, grunting as he stands. “I’ll try and hurry this journey up.”

He disappears off towards the front of the jet, and Pietro whines in no small amount of distress even though a part of him remembers that he hates Stark, or did hate Stark, or maybe should still hate Stark, but right now he can’t really make sense of anything. He’s scared, and he still can’t breathe right even though he’s not wailing or sobbing quite so much anymore, and his head is loud and confused but it also reminds him of how his surroundings seem when he’s running really fast - how they blend into oblivion, just a meaningless blur of colours and warped noise. 

“Hurts,” he chokes out, and Clint suddenly looks close to tears.

“I know, buddy,” he says, petting Pietro’s hair again, and then he presses the thumb of his other hand gently to Pietro’s lips. Pietro hasn’t sucked his thumb since he was a toddler, and he’s certainly never sucked anyone else’s, because that’s _weird_ , but right now it seems like the most natural thing in the world to accept Clint’s thumb between his lips and start suckling, his eyes slipping closed as he lets out helpless little whimpering noises.

Clint inhales sharply from somewhere above him, then lets out a shaky breath.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I got you. You’re okay now, you’re safe. Oh, baby boy, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

Pietro wants to mumble ‘it’s okay’, but he only manages to whine softly around the thumb in his mouth before unconsciousness takes him again.

☁︎

“He’s a fucking Little!”

Tony feels as if he’s going to have a meltdown. His mind is moving a mile a minute, desperately searching every memory to see if he can remember a time when it was made obvious, because it _had_ to have been. No Little can effectively hide it in the long-term, it would tear them apart, send them into a complete meltdown that there may well be no recovery from, but Tony must accept - with no small degree of horror - that that must be what Pietro went through on the journey back from the latest mission. What he’s going through right now, being looked over in the infirmary by a team of Little-specialist doctors that he’d had to have sent in from a hospital on the other side of the city, because there’s not much in the Tower that’s prepared for Littles.

“ _God_ , how did we not know? How did it not show up in his medical records?”

Steve pipes up helpfully from the other side of the table they’ve got all Pietro’s documents spread out on, “We don’t _have_ any medical records for Pietro. Perhaps he never had any at all, but if he did, they went down with Sokovia. All the information we have was collected by our own doctors or scraped from that HYDRA base.”

Tony runs a hand harshly down his face. “And, amongst all the blood tests and physicals and scans, nobody thought to get him Classified.”

He looks up at Steve, who has a grim expression on his face as he looks over one of the files that had been recovered from the HYDRA facility. Amongst the information is a photograph taken of Pietro unconscious on a metal slab, sickly pale and dark-haired with surgery markings and blood smeared all over him. Tony reads some of upside-down words scrawled in pen - “accelerated healing, surgery techniques must be adapted” - and feels a fresh wave of guilt wash over him, thinking of Pietro writhing and screaming on that stretcher in the plane.

“He’s a Little,” he murmurs again, staring at the photo, thinking of the experiments and torture, thinking of the battle in Sokovia, thinking about the bomb with his own name on it which had destroyed the boy’s life along with his sister’s. He wants to break something, but he settles for picking up his coffee mug with a trembling hand and gulping down the lukewarm sludge.

“What about Wanda?” he says as he puts the mug down again. “What’s she? We don’t have any records for her either, right?”

Steve shakes his head. “She’s being Classified right now. The doctors looking at Pietro were concerned by her distress, thought that she might’ve been hiding being a Little too.”

“We don’t have any results yet?”

“Not yet. We will soon, it’s been an hour or so.”

And then, perfectly on cue, the door opens and a kind-faced Classification Officer escorts Wanda into the room with a gentle hand on her shoulder, looking unfittingly calm for the atmosphere of the room.

Wanda’s not wearing her battle outfit anymore - she’s changed into an oversized jumper and a pair of leggings - and she doesn’t seem to have any of the objects that Classification Officers give out to newly-Classified Littles. A pacifier, as standard, but some of the nicer places - ie, the place that Tony had shipped the doctors and Officers from - offer complete packages based on the headspace age that they glean from the Little. Clothes and diapers and toys.

“Mister Rogers and Mister Stark? Miss Wanda Maximoff here is a Caregiver,” the Officer declares, giving Wanda a smile, and Wanda smiles back shyly before she walks tentatively towards Tony and Steve. “Now, does anyone have any questions or concerns? I know you said you were quite alright, Wanda, but you should know that we offer counselling as standard upon Classifying anyone, just in case you—“

Wanda shakes her head. “No, no. It’s okay, really. It’s not...a shock.” Guilt taints her expression then, and her brow furrows as she stares at the floor and wraps her arms around herself. Perhaps Tony would’ve brushed it off, filed it away as one of the many odd things that both twins do, the strange way they both act, but both the Officer and Steve seem to notice something in the action.

Steve steps forward. “What do you mean?” he asks gently, and Wanda’s arms tighten. She seems reluctant to speak, but also looks like she wants to - like she can’t keep the words in.

“I knew,” she says, very quietly. “I got Classified when I was seventeen. Pietro did, too. We both...knew.”

The silence that follows her words is shocked and pressing. 

Steve just looks at her, and the Classification Officer looks confused, and in the quiet Tony feels something like fury building in his chest.

“You knew,” he says. Steve whispers ‘ _don’t_ ’, tries to stop him with a hand across his chest, but he pushes past it and takes another step towards Wanda. “You—you knew he was a Little, but you let him hide it. You let him do that to himself.”

He’s expecting defensiveness, or perhaps more guilt, but Wanda just looks confused, her brows furrowing slightly as she looks up at Tony, even as she backs away a step. Scarlet flickers in her eyes - an uncontrolled spark of her powers.

“I didn’t force him,” she says. “He...he didn’t want to be Little. He didn’t like it. That’s his choice to make, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t!” Tony shouts, and Wanda flinches back, shocked. “It’s not a choice! It’s not something that can just be disregarded! If someone rejects their Classification, they need counselling and therapy until they accept it!”

And it’s only then that it clicks.

Pietro and Wanda are from Sokovia - a country war-torn for their whole lives. Their education is limited, their life experiences even more so. Their medical history is non-existent, they seem to have very little knowledge of what Tony and the other Avengers consider to be the normal world.

“You don’t know,” he whispers, staring at Wanda, and her expression swims between innocent confusion and a defensive glare. Steve, once again, steps forward.

“Wanda,” he says gently, and part of Tony wants to throttle him but the rest knows he’s far better equipped to handle this now. “What do you know about Classifications? About...the whole system. Was it explained to you?”

Of course - of _course_ \- Wanda slowly shakes her head.

“People mentioned it sometimes,” she says tentatively. “They talked about how it...used to be, or they talked about how it is in other countries, but we did not...really _have_ a system. Most of the Classification buildings were targeted, like the hospitals. They were destroyed. I only made Pietro travel to get Classified because...because I felt it was important. But it only made him upset.”

Steve nods his gentle understanding. “And what was the Classification test like in Sokovia? What was the building like?”

“It was...a hall. There was a hole in the roof, where a bomb fell next door and caused big damage. The Officer was not kind. Tired. She asked us questions and then told us what we were and then we left. Pietro did not want to talk about it. He got angry every time I said it.”

The more Wanda talks - the more she explains the state of Classification in Sokovia, the state of Sokovia in general, how she hadn’t known anything about the classes except that Littles are weak and must be taken care of, how her brother had rejected his Classification endlessly through each endless era of suffering in their lives - the more Tony is convinced that he is going to throw up.

The Classification Officer walks over at some point, puts his hand on Wanda’s shoulder again and starts asking her more pointed questions so that he can start teaching her about the reality, start explaining how warped her perceptions are from the way she’d grown up and how warped Pietro’s perceptions must be too.

Tony decides to leave the room the moment he hears Wanda’s sharp gasp when the Classification Officer explains exactly how damaging it can be for a Little to force away their headspace. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Steve, and Steve nods to the door to consent to his leaving.

A part of him wants to hole up and drown himself in some simple work - design something new, work the kinks out of something old, go over the battle data from his suit - but the rest knows that he won’t be able to even sit down. 

He makes his way unhesitatingly towards the infirmary.

It’s no longer frantic outside of Pietro’s private room like it had been earlier when he and Clint had brought him in, but there’s still plenty of the Little-specialist doctors bustling around in their lilac scrubs. The seats outside of the room where Tony had left Clint are empty, but it comes as little surprise that Tony enters the room to find Clint instead sat by Pietro’s bedside, with Natasha by his side.

Pietro is unconscious - asleep? - in a medical crib for Littles, which must’ve been transported in by the doctors. It’s made of white plastic like a hospital bed with glass sides instead of the usual crib bars, but Tony recognises that the standard hospital sheets have been replaced with soft, colourful ones, and Pietro has been given a pacifier and been half-swaddled in a warm blanket. One arm is hanging out of the blanket for the IV and other wires hooked up to him, and Clint is reaching over the pushed-down side of the crib to hold his pale hand.

“He’s drugged up,” he says quietly as Tony approaches, his gaze never straying from Pietro’s face. He looks more sickly now than he had on the floor in the field, and his hair is still slightly matted in places with dirt and blood, but he’s been wiped over and his wounds have been dressed, including the gash on his head he’d acquired when he hit that rubble. “They couldn’t calm him down. Every time he woke up he’d start freaking out, crying. He’d get desperately attached to whoever was looking at him, whoever was being nice to him. So they figured this was best for now.”

Nothing about this situation seems to say ‘best’. Tony’s never seen a Little like this, never seen one freak out like Pietro had, and everything about it sits so incredibly wrong with him. 

Caregiver instincts.

For lack of a better option as to what to do, almost afraid of getting any closer to Pietro’s sleeping form, he steps towards the IV bag and reads it.

“He’s just being given some nutrients while he’s out,” Natasha says, tone soft. “And he’s being fed a relaxant to keep him down. It’s strong, but that’s only because of his metabolism. He’s okay.”

For now. But what about when he wakes up? He won’t be okay then. And who will take care of him? What are any of them meant to do?

Tony runs a hand down his face yet again, craving something stronger than coffee.

“What have the doctors said?” he asks. He’s looking at Clint, who’s been at Pietro’s side ever since he’d gotten injured during the battle, but Clint gives no indication that he’d even heard. His thumb is tracing patterns on the back of Pietro’s hand, and he’s still just staring like he’s afraid the boy will slip away if he even blinks. 

Natasha’s brow creases with sadness at the sight, but she still offers Tony a response.

“He’s traumatised,” she whispers, and Tony has to swallow a bout of nausea. “I mean...He would be anyway, considering everything he’s been through, but for a Little, headspace is meant to be an escape from that. Somewhere where anything they might’ve been through is forgotten about, but the doctors said Pietro being put through so much while denying his Classification...broke something—“

“I don’t like that word.” His voice is too sharp, but he continues anyway. “‘Broke’. I don’t like it. The kid’s not broken—“

“That’s all well and good,” Natasha says, and her voice is just as sharp, meeting him eye-to-eye, “But using a nicer word won’t change the reality, Tony. Something in Pietro _is_ broken. He can’t escape from his trauma, even in headspace. He’s been denying himself for years - he’s never once been properly taken care of. Growing up in Sokovia, surviving on the streets, being experimented on by HYDRA, do you think he’s ever slept in a crib before? Do you think he’s ever been swaddled in a blanket? Do you think he’s ever even had a pacifier? That’s the _bare minimum_ , Tony, and he’s probably never seen any of it before. Do you understand how bad this is? How _damaged_ he is?”

Tony steps towards her, “You’re saying that like he can’t be helped!”

And she meets his eyes. “I’m not saying that at all. He needs help, he deserves help, he’s _going to get help_ , but who’s going to give it to him? We’re all Caregivers or Neutrals, but what can we do? We’re heroes, Tony, we don’t have time to be taking care of a Little.”

“Then we’ll make time.”

Tony looks at Pietro as he says it. He thinks about the boy that had faced them at first, so hurt by the world and so desperate to help his people; then the boy that had fought with them, the boy who had almost died for Clint; then the Avenger. 

Pietro is difficult. He’s always been difficult, probably always will be - he’s a brat and an asshole and somehow overconfident and insecure in equal measure, but, most importantly, he’s one of them. He is an Avenger, he is a part of their family, and he will not be abandoned.

“Whatever it takes,” Tony whispers. “I am not giving up on the kid.”

And maybe he’s expecting Nat to keep arguing. He’s at least expecting her to leave the room. But instead she meets his eyes, just looks at him for a moment, and then nods. Her agreement and her approval.

“Pietro stays,” she says, then reaches out to clasp Clint’s shoulder gently. His grip on Pietro’s hand tightening, he nods.

“Pietro stays.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony spends his time by an unconscious Pietro’s side while others come and go.   
> He talks with Steve about the past, and then thinks about the future after getting his first taste of exactly how desperately in need of care Pietro is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this fic got a lot of positive reception!  
> i was definitely surprised, but i’m so glad that people are already into this weird, self-indulgent au of mine - i can’t wait to drown myself and all the rest of you in hurt/comfort
> 
> this chapter is short, but it’s an intermission of sorts to set up the actual development of plot, plus some angst and early relationship development before Things Happen
> 
> please enjoy!

Natasha, reluctantly, leaves as night falls, at Tony’s insistence. She and Clint have been sat by Pietro’s bedside far longer than Tony has - for hours and hours, since they’d all landed back at the tower the previous evening - and it’s clear that it’s taking its toll. Clint and Nat are still dirty from the battle, wearing their undershirts and the bottom halves of their battle uniforms and their boots, and Tony would command them both to leave and take care of themselves if possible, but it’s been made clear that Clint is immovable. It would probably be cruel to continue to try and pry him away, so Tony just nods to Nat as she stands and tells her to rest up. Clint mumbles something close to a response to Nat’s farewell as her hand brushes over his shoulder, but exhaustion is weighing him down something awful. He’s still sat in the same hard chair right beside Pietro’s crib he’d taken up residence in about twenty-four hours ago, with a sea of fast food wrappers around him. Amongst the mess is a crumpled Five Guys bag in his lap from their latest attempt at a junk food comfort meal that really hadn’t done anything on the ‘comforting’ front.

It’s hard to be comforted right now - hard to do anything but stare grimly, sit silently, when Pietro still looks the way he does. His injuries are steadily starting to heal thanks to his metabolism, but it’s much slower than usual - almost painstaking. There’s some more colour to his cheeks now, at least, but he’s still such a heart-wrenching sight, curled up into a tight ball in his crib suckling on his pacifier, his blanket folded by his feet to reveal the snap-crotch onesie he’d been changed into from the hospital gown a few hours ago. The onesie looks more comfortable, more appropriately Little, but it’s the same depressing shade of hospital blue as everything except the Little-specialist doctors’ and nurses’ scrubs.

The nurses and doctors have been coming by often to check in on Pietro - replace the IV bags that he’s burning through, give him a brief physical check-over and look at his healing injuries, discuss in hushed tones whether it’s safe to start reducing the dosage of the meds - and there’s been a few diaper changes that Tony had respectfully looked away from, knowing how much the kid would hate for him to see.

Really, Pietro would probably hate him seeing any of this, but there’s no way he’s leaving. Even if Pietro goes back to hating him as fiercely as he did when he stood by Ultron’s side, even if Pietro’s so furious he never forgives Tony once he’s aged up again.

Tony’s not even going to think about sleep until Pietro is lucid and stable.

That being said -

“Clint,” he says, as casually as he can. Clint gives no indication that he’d heard, and it’s not in the playful way he likes to break out when someone’s being annoying - when he pulls his hearing aids out while someone’s calling for him, or just mid-conversation if he’s being told something he doesn’t care for. “C’mon. It’ll be okay if you just pass out for a couple hours. Kid’s not going anywhere.”

Tony has tried many times in the past day to make light conversation with Clint - tried to goad him into the usual bickering about what burger place is the best, because Clint _always_ insists it’s In-N-Out; tried to get him to think about the brighter side, talk about plans for the future, about how things are gonna be when Pietro’s awake and better - but it’s only suggestions for Clint to leave or sleep or shower that ever get the man’s attention.

“No,“ he says, just as firm as he’d been one hour in as he is going on twenty-six, even though his voice is hoarse and thick with sleep now. “What if he wakes up?”

Tony’s lips curl sympathetically at the back of Clint’s head, his gaze travelling over how both of Clint’s hands are wrapped tightly around one of Pietro’s. 

Clint’s hands are large and calloused and tan, worn by training and battles and farm work and age, and they make Pietro’s look positively delicate in comparison, even beyond the bruises and cuts the kid’s still littered with, including the torn skin of his knuckles. He’s still got skin like a baby’s - smooth and ghostly pale.

“He’s not gonna wake up, man,” Tony says gently. “They’ve still got him on meds. If he does wake up, he won’t be lucid, and he’ll conk straight out again. You could go up to your room and sleep a full night and you wouldn’t miss a damn thing.”

Still, as much as he’s trying to be straightforward, knowing that that’s what’s most likely to get through to Clint at the moment, Tony knows there’s another side to the anxiety. Beyond the ‘what if he wakes up?’, there’s a ‘what if he goes downhill?’

There shouldn’t be any reason to worry. Pietro’s not in any genuinely awful physical condition - not like he had been after Sokovia - but Clint is clearly afraid that the kid will wake up in the same state he’d been in on the jet. He’s afraid of the guilt that will come if Pietro screams out for him like he’d screamed out for Wanda, and he won’t be there just like she hadn’t.

Tony had been very sure not to mention that fact to her. She’d come up a while after he had and sat down next to Clint, who had very kindly released Pietro’s hand so that she could hold it instead, tracing swirling patterns over his palm and whispering to him in Sokovian, humming a few soft lullabies that she didn’t seem to remember the words to. A few hours ago, however, the Officer she’d been assigned had come up and coaxed her to get some rest, telling her she needed it and that it would help Pietro too, and she’d agreed with no small degree of reluctance. She’d kissed her brother’s forehead and pet his blood-matted curls and bid him goodnight, and then she’d left with a polite goodbye to the other three silent occupants of the room. Clint had returned to his post once she was gone, holding Pietro’s IV-free hand between both of his own, and has remained that way ever since.

“Alright,” Tony says, trying for a different angle. The same angle the Officer had taken with Wanda. “What about when he does wake up, huh? Five hours from now, maybe, and you’re falling asleep sitting up. When he wakes up...you wanna be there for him, don’t you? You can’t do that if you don’t take care of yourself, man.”

Clint is so silent and unmoving for the agonising seconds following Tony’s words that he becomes quickly terrified that he’s said completely the wrong thing, pushed Clint’s guilt around too much, been foolish in the thought that Clint could be moved in the same way a broken nineteen-year-old girl can.

But, instead of breaking or yelling or anything like that, Clint just sits back in his seat with a deep groan and pulls one of his hands gently from Pietro’s to drag harshly down his face.

“You’re right,” he says, and he doesn’t sound happy about it, but at least he’s admitting it. His hand comes away from his face dusted with the dried dirt and flaked blood from the battle which he’d never washed from his skin, and Tony watches his face change as he seems to realise this, realise that he’s not in any state to be the sort of Caregiver that Pietro will need if he does wake up anytime soon.

“I think…” he says, and then seems to lose his train of thought. He shakes his head, scrunches his eyes shut, and forces them open again. “I think...think I need to shower. And sleep.”

Slowly, Tony nods. “Doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”

Clint groans again as he struggles to straighten his back, his joints clicking, then twists to look at Tony, eyes tired but shimmering with something intense - almost frantic. “You...you swear you’ll stay with him, though? You won’t—You don’t leave him alone? Not even for a moment?”

“Not even for a moment,” Tony promises, dead serious. Clint holds eye contact for a moment that stretches on too long in the silence, seemingly searching intently for honesty, before he finally blinks like his eyelids are made of lead and turns his attention back to Pietro, looking over him for a moment before he dares to speak.

“I’m goin’ to bed, buddy,” he finally whispers, soft like he really is talking to a sleeping baby, and Tony feels his throat grow tight. “I swear—I swear I won’t be gone long, and I’ll be back. I’ll always come back, okay? But...but Tony’s gonna stay with you. He’s gonna hold your hand, alright? He’s gonna make sure you’re okay.”

By the time Clint’s whispering ceases, when he finally leans down and presses a kiss between Pietro’s brows before he stands, Tony’s eyes are stinging. But still, he stands up at the same time and smoothly swaps places with Clint, takes Pietro’s hand in his before Clint’s fully pulled his own hand away, so Pietro doesn’t go even a single moment without physical contact.

Clint seems grateful for this, but he stops himself short before he speaks. He looks to Pietro one more time, gaze lingering, before he bids Tony a quiet goodnight, pats his shoulder, and he leaves the room. His steps are heavy and slightly limping with some injury acquired during the battle, and Tony’s sure he hears voices in the corridor a few moments later, but he tunes it out.

He brings Pietro’s pale, chilled hand to his lips and presses a soft kiss to his bruised knuckles, running his thumb over the boy’s fingers then as if to warm them up.

He thinks to pick up the blanket again and wrap Pietro up before he really catches a chill, but someone is picking it up for him before he can move. He glances up, expecting a nurse, but instead it’s Steve, dressed in his pyjamas with an undeniably gentle look on his face.

“He seems cold,” he says softly, by way of explanation, and Tony nods just once.

“He is.” 

Steve carefully drapes the blanket over the boy in front of them and tucks it around his body, leaving his hand exposed so that Tony can keep it in his own, and then he sits down only slightly stiffly in the chair beside Tony’s. There’s another long silence - the type that Tony’s been suffering through a lot of for the past many hours - before Steve speaks.

“How has he been?”

It’s a loaded question, and also a completely empty one. Tony’s answered the same thing to Wanda when she’d appeared, and Wanda’s Officer, and a few S.H.I.E.L.D. employees, and even a few of the nurses who had just come in to check Pietro over.

He thinks he should probably be getting used to it just like he’s gotten used to the silence, but the words feel just as heavy as he says them again. Heavier than last time, as if they’re being weighed down with each further hour that passes.

“They’ve kept him asleep, or...down, at least,” he says, voice soft and rough. “Changed his IV bags. Changed him. They’ve got him in diapers, I guess, but I don’t know how they got any sort of age range out of him. S’pose they’re just assuming. The Officer came by and asked Wanda earlier, if he’d been told his regression age when he was Classified, but she said he hadn’t.”

Steve’s expression, previously schooled into patience and that gentle pinch of worry, turns noticeably grim.

“Yeah,” he says. “Wanda said a lot about the state of the system in Sokovia. And about the state of the centre they went to and the Officer that Classified them. And about the state of the conditions she and Pietro lived in. I don’t blame you for walking out of there. It was...hard to stomach. All the times she recalled Pietro being so close to a drop only to force himself back…”

The way Steve trails off, gaze suddenly faraway, makes Tony feel nauseous. He shakes his head, swallowing down a bitter taste. “If she’s a Caregiver,” he whispers, “How did she let him? If...if a Caregiver can see that a Little’s close to dropping, it’s just an instinct to encourage them and take care of them, right? How did she see him torturing himself and turn a blind eye? How could she neglect him like that?”

Tony glances up just in time to meet Steve’s suddenly sharp gaze. “She didn’t neglect him,” he says, and Tony immediately recognises the way he speaks when he’s trying to calmly measure out frustration or anger. He’s usually not so quick to get to such a point, but his face seems darkened, worn, and Tony entertains the thought that perhaps Steve hasn’t slept at all either. “Wanda...Wanda wasn’t educated at all on what it means to be a Caregiver. All she had to go on was her instincts, and she made it clear that she desperately wanted to take care of Pietro. She said she frequently offered to hold him or play with him, but he seemed so uncomfortable with every aspect of his Littleness that her instincts turned - told her to keep these things away from him if they upset him. It wasn’t _right_ , of course, but...she didn’t know any better. She just wanted to take care of her brother. And she feels... _awful_ now, now that it’s all...come to a head.”

And what a head it’s come to. They’re still in phase one of the problem - Pietro isn’t even off of the meds keeping him calm and asleep yet, they have no idea what he’ll be like when he is, whether he’ll keep trying to reject himself or if he’ll continue to be forced into some frantic state of terrified deep regression like he’d been in on the plane.

Tony is suddenly overcome with the urge to pull Pietro’s curled-up form into his lap, cradle him, but he knows he can’t so he just drags his free hand down his face harshly enough to sting.

“I shouldn’t be blaming her,” he says quietly, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s convincing Steve. “It’s not Wanda’s fault. She’s not a villain. She’s just—fuck, she’s a kid. I’m just...I’m so worried, and I’m so—fucking _angry_ that this could’ve happened, and it’s driving me insane that there’s no one to be angry at.”

No. There’s a few. But none seem like satisfying options.

Everyone responsible for the sequence of descending events that drove Sokovia to war? The person who ordered the strikes that killed the twins’ parents, trashed the Classification Centres? That overworked employee who just gave the twins their Classes after some bullshit interrogation-style test and then booted them straight out? That HYDRA agent that plucked the twins and countless others from the streets to be locked up and tortured?

And then suddenly, for the first time, Tony considers exactly what state Pietro may have been in whilst in the HYDRA facility. They must’ve known about his Classification - HYDRA would never leave a detail like that out, not when it involves a promising subject - and the thought of them either intentionally pulling Pietro further away from his headspace or pushing him into a drop just so that they could break him assaults Tony so suddenly and viciously that he wrenches his hand back from Pietro’s and stumbles to his feet to cough and gag.

His eyes burn, his stomach is turning, and he wants to kill someone. He wants to tear something apart, wants to do something _awful_ , but right now it’s all he can do to stagger his way towards the wall, his back to Pietro in the crib, and let a harsh sob rattle his chest. He hears Steve’s chair creak against the floor as he stands, hears footsteps approach him and a hand lay gently on his shoulder, but it all feels far away. Secondary. His anger and frustration and _grief_ are the only things that exist in the universe - until he hears Pietro groan softly.

It _is_ softly, just a weak little breath that just barely cracks into a sound, but it makes every single one of Tony’s instincts light up like a Christmas tree. He spins around, wide-eyed, just in time to see Pietro’s eyelids flutter to reveal the glassy pale blue of his irises, and he’s frozen, just staring, as the boy’s unfocused gaze slides jerkily around the room. He lets out another soft sound, this one more like a whine, and then tears are building and Tony still can’t move.

It’s Steve that runs to Pietro’s side.

“Hey,” he coos, all soft and soothing and so, so gentle, because it’s clear right now that the sound of his voice matters far more than the words themselves. “Hey there, little one. Oh, shh, shh, shh, you’re okay. You’re okay. I’m here. Tony and I are right here, you’re safe.”

Tony can do little but watch - watch the way Steve oh-so-gently cups Pietro’s pale cheek in his large hand, the way his thumb traces the boy’s cheekbone, wiping away tears. A sob bubbles up in Pietro’s throat and he leans weakly closer, his pacifier slipping from his lips and falling to the mattress beside him, wet with drool that leaves a streak down his jaw and is soon followed by more. He must be regressed about as low as possible - his gaze is blank and entirely innocent beyond the haze of drugs - but he’s still clearly distressed in a way that runs far deeper than infantile discomfort.

It’s the type of shit doctors talk about in worst case scenarios - the type of thing that had been warned about in every Caregiver class or seminar that Tony had sat through, the results of neglect and abuse and atrocities too terrible to speak of. A horror story - not something real, not something that can happen, not something that _should ever happen_ , but it happened. It happened to _Pietro_ , who is now sobbing and writhing weakly and leaning into every point of contact with Steve like he’s never felt comfort in his entire life.

Tony’s so caught up in it that it takes him way too long to realise that Steve is pausing occasionally in his cooing to address him. He shakes his head like it’ll clear it, barely manages a ‘what?’, and Steve very patiently repeats his request for a hand towel. There’s a couple piled up on a cart in the corner - along with a few pillows and blankets and even some spare rompers like the one Pietro’s wearing, all distinctly hospital-patterned, all that same ugly blue - and Tony quickly grabs one as soon as he comes to his senses. He’s still almost apprehensive to approach the bed, approach Pietro, but then the boy lets out another shallow gasp of a sob and Steve coos, and Tony fights back his anxiety as he steps close enough to hold the towel out.

Steve glances up at him, a hand reaching out to grab the towel, but then he hesitates. He looks back down to Pietro, who’s got Steve’s forearm in a cuddly sort of vice grip as he continues to cry. He needs something proper to cuddle, Tony thinks - a blankie or a stuffie or something, some sort of comfort item when he can’t be cuddled by a human being - but there’s nothing like that to offer, probably not even somewhere convenient to buy something like that at this time of night.

Not that Tony couldn’t make it happen anyway, but his brain isn’t working quite on that level right now. The thought of making calls until someone can run out and buy a teddy bear in the middle of the night feels wrong - wrong, because every single one of Tony’s Caregiver instincts is telling him to stay right here and devote every single bit of attention to Pietro, to somehow manage to solve every problem by himself.

An impossible task, surely - judging solely by the way his brain seems to short-circuit when Steve gently pushes the towel back towards him.

“How about we let Tony clean you up a bit, hm?” he murmurs to Pietro, sounding almost encouraging, but there’s not a single bit of comprehension in the boy’s tired, tear-filled eyes. He already looks like he’s dropping off again.

“Come on.” And this time the encouragement is aimed at Tony. Steve glances up at him, gives him a look that can only be described as _gentle_ , and in that Tony finally finds himself. He crouches down beside Pietro, feels something clench tight in his chest when those blue eyes find him and follow him, and then he gets a corner of the soft towel to start very carefully wiping at the tears and drool. Pietro lets out another soft, sleepy, utterly miserable noise, and Tony coos softly at him.

“I know,” he murmurs, just letting himself speak, hoping that it’ll work like Steve’s cooing had. “I know you feel real bad right now. Those drugs suck, huh? I know. I hate ‘em. I can only imagine being on a dose like you’re on, kiddo. But at least you can get some sleep, huh? That’s all you’ve gotta do right now. You’ve just gotta sleep and get better and let us take care of you. Whether you wake up and you’re back and we need to talk, or if you’re still so Little and you need us to take care of you just like this, it’s okay. You’re a member of this family, okay? You’re a part of us. And we’re...we’re gonna make this work. Yeah? I think...I think it might be good.”

At some point, he must’ve put the towel down, because his fingers are carding as carefully as possible through Pietro’s tangled curls, soothing him gently back towards unconsciousness. He’s relaxed, no real tension left in his body except the last little bit of energy he’s expending to try and nuzzle closer to Tony’s hand, and, for the first time since Pietro dropped, Tony feels good. There’s a certain warmth enveloping him, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of _right_ which makes every similar experience he’s ever had as a Caregiver - caring for Little friends in brief instances, helping out employees when they’d dropped suddenly while he happened to be nearby, observing and assisting, always as a guest at a safe distance - utterly pale in comparison.

“Y’know,” he whispers, watching as Pietro’s eyes finally slide closed, unsure if he’s talking to Pietro or Steve or himself or just the room, “I’ve always wanted a little boy.”

He senses movement behind him before Steve is leaning easily around him, close enough for Tony to feel his warmth, and gently slipping the pacifier back into Pietro’s mouth. It’s that which finally settles Pietro completely, soothes his soft breathing into evening out, and then he’s asleep again and the room is consumed by the usual, impure silence of a hospital. Steve sits back in his chair, his warmth leaving Tony, but then a large, warm hand moves to rest gently just above the collar of his shirt, right at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and Tony manages to relax too. He’s still petting Pietro’s hair, running his thumb down over the kid’s pale, slightly chilled cheeks, but this feels good. This feels right. This feels like everything Tony never even really knew he wanted - never wanted to admit that he wanted.

He tries not to let it be tainted by the thought that it won’t last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!  
> please leave a comment if you enjoyed! all your comments on the last chapter were amazing - thank you all so much!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pietro wakes up, and gets some time in the arms of his sister before being entrusted to the care of Steve and Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it continues, heavy on the hurt/comfort and the wanda angst as the plot slowly finds its footing
> 
> again, i’d like to thank everyone for the love for the fic - all of your comments and kudos and bookmarks make me so happy, and i’m so glad (and relatively surprised) that people are enjoying this! you’re all so lovely!!
> 
> please enjoy!

The float towards consciousness feels as if it takes months. 

Pietro is not a man known for his patience - he gets frustrated with a situation in the time it might take a regular person to even process it - but this...this is _slow_. Actually slow - not his type of slow. The type of slow where he looks over at Wanda and even she looks a little frustrated, her jaw tight, and that’s when he knows it’s _slow_ -slow, because Wanda is always patient, especially around him, which covers pretty much all the time, because they’re almost never apart.

She’s always patient around him because she’d once mentioned how he always gets affected by other people’s emotions, especially hers, and she’d mentioned at the time that she’d heard somewhere that that’s common with Littles, and then he’d gotten frustrated and made her drop it.

The idea that he could have any obvious, subconscious habits of a Little makes him feel incredibly self-conscious. Particularly when he knows exactly how partial he is to sucking his thumb as a method of self-soothing - even if he’s been refusing to give in to that habit for the years since his Classification had given him a reason for it.

He doesn’t need to suck his thumb. Why can’t he just crave cigarettes or alcohol like a normal adult? Not that either addictive substance would have much effect on him. His body would either burn straight through it or reject it outright. But it would still be better than craving something so stupid - which...he can’t help but notice, he’s not craving right now.

He thinks for a jolting moment that perhaps he’d allowed himself to give in to the urge in the throes of whatever stiflingly deep sleep he’s apparently been in, but he manages to gingerly wiggle his stiff fingers and thumbs - the action made difficult by a foggy feeling in his head and general lethargy weighing down his every atom - and they’re all accounted for. 

There’s something not-a-thumb in his mouth - something soft and rubbery, something that fits in a way that feels right, feels _good_ , but his spiking anxiety forces him to spit it out as violently as possible, confused and panicking. A trail of drool follows and his face screws up in discomfort, not liking the feeling at all, but at least the warm wetness trailing down his cheek helps pull him further towards the surface of this murky darkness. 

He starts to become aware of more things as he floats. He’s laying on something soft, for one thing, but it doesn’t feel like a bed - it’s softer than that, and he feels somehow safer in it, more enclosed. He’s wearing a t-shirt, maybe, but his legs are bare beneath the soft blanket he’s cocooned in, and he becomes aware of a far more pressing discomfort when he tries to shift. He’s weak, for one thing, and too stiff to do more than sort of writhe, but there’s wetness all _down there_ and it feels _awful_. 

It’s enough to make him break the surface of unconsciousness far faster, but it also makes the strange haze in his head come back tenfold. Every point of discomfort seems to get worse, makes his eyes burn as he struggles to open them because his eyelids are so _heavy_ , but he tries with every part of himself to fight through it - like he’s done so many times before.

They’re going to hurt him if he doesn’t. They’re going to hurt Wanda, and he won’t be able to protect her, and it will be all his fault.

What if they’ve already hurt her?

They must’ve drugged him with something specific, something heavy, or they knocked him unconscious again while they were beating him, and that’s why he feels like this, and Wanda is suffering. She isn’t safe, he doesn’t know where she is, they could be doing _anything_ to her, and he’s so _selfish_ , feeling as small and helpless as he does right now, craving her here to protect him when he should be the one protecting her, because he’s older and he’s her big brother and he’d promised Mama and Papa so many times as a child - every time he and Wanda had gone out onto the derelict streets for school or to shop or to play - that he would be a good boy, a good big brother, and protect his sister.

☁︎

Pietro wakes up with a panicked scream of, “ _Wanda_!”

His eyes are glassy and wild, flitting around the room and apparently not seeing any of it. He’s trying to sit up, but he’s still far too weak to support himself, and the sight immediately makes Wanda’s stomach drop to the floor. She fights immediately through the others watching, practically shoves Tony out of the way in a manner she immediately feels guilty for, but it’s immediately overridden as she gathers her baby brother up in her arms.

“Pietro,” she gasps, holding him tight to her chest, feeling his hummingbird heartbeat _thumpthumpthump_ against her _. “Oh, darling. It’s alright. It’s okay. I’m safe - you’re safe. We’re both safe now, see? Open your eyes. Open your eyes and see, brother_.”

Perhaps redundant, since his eyes _are_ already open, but he doesn’t seem to know that. Her words thankfully have the desired effect, make his eyes _focus_ , and his gaze immediately flits up to her face.

“Wanda,” he whispers, sounding dizzy and lost, and he stumbles over even their native tongue as he tries to speak. “ _Sister. You’re—you’re hurt. I’m...hurt. My head...I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Wanda. You’re safe? You’re safe. Wanda. Sister. You’re safe—_ “

His rambling, borderline hysterical, almost makes her feel nauseous, but Wanda just holds him tighter and murmurs, “ _I’m safe. You’re safe. We’re both safe, sweet brother. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay now_ ,” even though it comes with the guilt of a lie.

Truly, she doesn’t know what things are going to be like from now on, but she at least hopes that they will be better. Living in the tower with the Avengers, being safe, having food and freedom and space to both play and train, has already been so good for them.

Perhaps having the same safety surrounding their Classifications will be good, too. She wants Pietro to be safe and happy, wants him to be _Little_ , and she wants - now more than ever - to take care of him.

It takes almost all of her self control to not pick up the pacifier and clean it off before giving it back to him, cuddle him as he settles back into a nice nap again, because maybe this time all the bad things will go away and he’ll wake up happy like a little boy should.

But she can’t. He’d spat out the pacifier, for one thing, and her Officer had - in the brief ‘lessons’ he’d given her so far - told her that exercising caution around Pietro’s headspaces is the best course of action. Only a more experienced Caregiver should try and push a Little into headspace if the Little is floating close, or if the Caregiver thinks it’s necessary, and Wanda might cause damage or upset Pietro if she tries to do the same.

It’s an awful, helpless, entirely unfamiliar feelings - to know that she is not what Pietro needs. It’s always been just the two of them, even when Mama and Papa were alive, always the two of them against the other children who called them strange and the people who hurled slurs while they were walking the streets, just the two of them to remain sure and proud and protective of each other. 

It had influenced a large part of Wanda’s often-repeated spiel, back before she’d given up on helping Pietro to accept himself.

_‘You’re proud of being Romani. You’re proud of being Jewish. You’re proud of being a smarty-pants and being popular with girls and being the fastest runner in the whole school back when we were nine. Why should you find shame in this part of yourself?_ ’

And every time she’d said it, Pietro had come back at her with new reasons. Like how their father had spoken so disgustedly of Littles, how their mother had pressured Pietro every day to be big and strong and protect his sister who clearly couldn’t protect herself. 

A small, childish part of her wonders how they’d react now. If they’d somehow survived, if Sokovia had never been destroyed, if all four of them were still there now living their miserable lives surrounded by rubble and the sound of bombs falling. If Pietro had been injured and forced to regress like he had in reality, would Papa be ashamed? Would Mama see him as a failure? Would they doubt Wanda’s ability to be a Caregiver, when she’s always been far more of a destructive force than a motherly spirit?

She crushes the thought beneath her heel and presses a kiss to her brother’s head, muttering soothingly to him.

It doesn’t matter now. The dead are dead and shall remain that way.

Pietro’s breathing a little bit easier now, and seems to be fairly stable in the knowledge that she is safe and so is he, tucked in her arms just as she’s craved for so long, but he’s still fidgeting and seems miserable in a way she can’t understand, hiccuping along with his slow tears in a way she hasn’t heard since they were both very young. It makes her chest feel tight, makes her want to give up and cry along with him, but she’s thankfully distracted as she senses someone step closer. She looks up from where she’s sat herself in the crib, ankles hanging off the side, to see Steve smiling gently down at her.

“You did well at calming him down,” he says, reaching out to card his hand gently through Pietro’s messy, dirty hair. Pietro usually doesn’t like his hair being touched - has hated it even more fiercely since the experiments had bleached it that silvery-white - but he makes no sound of protest now, and even seems to lean into the contact. It manages to pull a soft smile to her lips, watching her brother acting so innocent.

“He...he was acting like he does when he has nightmares,” she explains, voice so soft that she knows it must be all but inaudible, but she can’t bring herself to speak louder. She focuses on stroking Pietro’s hair, short burgundy nails scratching gently against his scalp. “Nightmares about the experiments. Not our parents. Not the bombs. He must have thought...that he was there still, when he was waking up. That’s why he was scared. That’s why he called out for me.”

There is a stretch of tense silence before Clint, who is stood close behind Steve, beside Tony, speaks with great hesitation. “He’s not...he’s not in headspace anymore, then.” 

The attention of the few people in the room shifts to him, gazes turning confused or curious, but Wanda sees understanding rise to Tony’s face. He meets Clint’s eyes, the both of them looking exhausted, downtrodden, as they seem to have some sort of communication. Wanda almost wants to delve into their minds, find out what it is that they know and won’t share, but she is tired too and she has no willingness to be cruel.

“What do you mean?” she finally asks, still practically whispering as she cards her fingertips through Pietro’s hair again, a method to soothe herself as much as it is to soothe him. There is more silence, more hesitation from Tony, before finally - finally - he speaks.

“When he woke up in the plane,” he explains, slowly, cautiously, finally meeting Wanda’s eyes, “He called out for you too.”

He bites his bottom lip. Drags his hand down his face. “...‘Cept he called you ‘Mama’.”

There is a single moment of silence. And then Wanda bursts into tears.

It seems fitting that her outburst immediately triggers Pietro to do the same, ruining all of her progress in calming him as his distress quickly starts to build up again. He seems confused, he seems so _innocent_ , and he’s pressing close to her like he wants to make her feel better somehow but just doesn’t know how, because he’s just a baby and he’s been through so much.

All of it is so strange, so different to the brother she knows, and Wanda realises now that - as much as she has always craved to be able to take care of her brother properly - seeing him like this, seeing him _Little_ , is alien to her.

Her whole brain feels like it’s been flipped upside down. There’s connections in all the wrong places, firing off at the same time as the ghosts of the connections that _should_ be there, and that old desire to help Pietro be big as a way of taking care of him is waging war with the much more natural instinct to encourage him to be as little as he wants.

She wants to tear herself apart. She wants to scream.

For the first time in her whole life, she is almost thankful when someone pulls her brother from her arms. She still clings to him, holds onto him until he is pulled out of reach as he does the same to her, and then she falls back into herself and does her best to wipe her tears even as they continue to fall, listening to her brother cry so hard he sounds like he can’t breathe.

She can’t breathe either. There’s a weight crushing her chest, a great pain that she knows cannot be lifted, and it almost overwhelms her entirely in the time before a box of tissues is being held out before her. She looks up, still wiping uselessly, desperately, at her wet cheeks, to see Natasha stood in front of her, eyes gentle and full of understanding. There are no words spoken, just the quieting of the room as Pietro’s sobs slowly begin to calm, but Wanda manages just the tiniest of watery smiles, an awkward courtesy, as she pulls out a few tissues. The box is placed down beside her on the crib mattress and then Natasha sits down on the other side of it, their shoulders just a few inches apart as Wanda wipes at her cheeks and blows her nose.

This. This is alien, too. It’s not something that Wanda has ever experienced before - having a friend, a female friend, to sit beside her and watch over her as she cries. Perhaps things would’ve been better if she had, but it’s always just been her and Pietro - just the two of them against everything.

It’s only the thought that things are different now, that they’re not alone, that allows Wanda to finally find her breath. 

“Thank you,” she whispers eventually, her gaze fixed on her brother as he is rocked in the strong arms of Steve. She doesn’t dare glance at Natasha, aware that she cannot handle the sight of any gentle smile right now.

Thankfully, Natasha seems to understand this.

“No problem,” she says, leaning over so that her shoulder bumps gently against Wanda’s. “We’ve got your back.”

☁︎

Steve’s experience with Littles is somewhat limited. Between the war and the ice and the whole superhero thing, there haven’t been many opportunities for him to really sit down with a Little and care for them properly.

Thankfully, he’s what people call a natural. He doesn’t know exactly why, can only guess that it’s something else in him that was affected by the serum - made stronger, at least, because he’s always been protective and nurturing at heart, even if he did lack any real sense of _self_ -preservation for many of those years before he didn’t exactly have to worry much about it anymore - but he’s grateful for it, now more than ever.

He never would’ve imagined this before. 

Pietro Maximoff is not someone he would’ve thought to be a Little, and he’s certainly not what most people would _look_ for in a Little, but now, holding the boy in his arms, he is filled with perhaps the most burning sense of affection and protectiveness he’s ever felt. Things hadn’t felt quite real before, watching Pietro unconscious in the crib and then in that brief period of frantic drug-addled wakefulness, but it’s real now. Pietro’s eyes are open - exhausted and filled with misery and bright with tears, but still that same blue - and he’s gripping onto Steve like he’s terrified of being torn away from him.

Steve is still cooing, still whispering sweet words like he had while Pietro was crying, but it’s not doing much. It breaks his heart that a little boy, a _baby_ , could possibly be feeling like this, but in that pain he forces himself to find conviction.

He is a Caregiver. Pietro is a Little in desperate need of care. And by God Steve is going to give it to him.

“Shh, now, it’s alright,” he murmurs, bouncing Pietro lightly on his hip, fearful of jostling him too much. Most of his words are nonsense, but just as many are promises - promises that Pietro will be taken care of, that he doesn’t have to worry about anything, that he’s just a little boy and he’s safe and everything is alright.

Words that - if Pietro’s whimpering and fidgeting and general clear signs of being overwhelmed are any indication - the boy has never heard before.

Truly, Steve is trying to reign himself in. He knows that any real care is likely to overwhelm Pietro, someone who has never felt even the slightest bit of it, but they can’t ease into it now like they would’ve if Pietro’s Classification had come to light in some other manner. They can’t talk about it, can’t set about discussing the best course of action to get Pietro to gradually start regressing to his stable regression age, can’t ease him gently downwards.

Pietro’s been falling for years, faster and faster each day, and Steve can’t decide if right now they’re trying to patchwork a parachute for him far too late, or if they’re fighting through the carnage of the crash.

“It’s alright,” he says again, an assurance to himself more than to Pietro, but he presses another kiss to the boy’s matted hair, holds him a little tighter and bounces him gently again. Pietro smells like dirt and blood. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

Thankfully, the atmosphere of the rest of the room seems to have calmed down now, too. Steve glances behind him to check on Wanda, relieved to see that she’s calmed down with Natasha beside her, and then he turns back to look at Clint, who has been loitering anxiously since Steve had scooped Pietro out of Wanda’s arms.

“Do you want to hold him?” Steve asks softly, and Clint quickly shakes his head.

“No. No, you’ve—you’ve got him. I don’t wanna upset him again.”

Steve almost feels guilty. He knows what Pietro means to Clint, can only guess the exact depths of what he’s been going through sat at Pietro’s bedside these past couple days, but he feels a similar responsibility on his own shoulders. He and Pietro aren’t close like Clint and Pietro are, certainly not like Wanda and Pietro are, but Pietro needs _care_ right now - the type that Steve only really trusts himself to provide. He’d taken both of the twins under his wing, both of them so terrifyingly young, and he’d all but raised them in the short time they’ve had so far - taken every opportunity he got to teach them a lesson they’d never gotten to learn amongst the terrible things that filled their youth. Cooking with Wanda, taking Pietro out to parks and baseball games, teaching them both how the world works - how the world _should_ work, outside of wars and supervillains and needles and experiments.

He’d sworn to take care of them. Help them grow into the strong young adults that he knows they are, knows they can be.

Except now, that course has diverted just slightly. And he’s really not sure exactly how he’s going to manage to teach Pietro - once he’s feeling better, once he can force himself out of regression again, because Steve knows he will - how to wilfully let go of his strength, let go of his need to be so grown up, let go of his need to be _big_ and let himself be taken care of.

He’s glad that Tony returns to the room before he can really start worrying about all of that again.

Tony had disappeared to talk to one of the doctors as soon as Steve had made it clear he was doing alright getting Pietro calmed down; he’s probably been talking their ear off, asking what he and Steve should do and what they _can_ do and whether they can have frequent check-ups for the time being and what warning signs they need to look out for to know if they need to seek specialist intervention again, and Steve almost imagines that this is what it’s like taking a newborn home from the hospital, feeling so protective and so unprepared.

“Doc says we’re good to go,” Tony says, briefly stroking Pietro’s hair with one hand while the other holds a bag that must be one of the regression packages commonly issued by Officers. Steve can’t imagine that Tony will use any of it; he’s probably already got stuff ordered - proper stuff, just for Pietro, but at least he’d been polite enough to accept it.

“We’re taking him upstairs?” Steve asks, just to make sure, and Tony nods.

“My floor up there. We can give him a bath and get him changed and see where we go from there.”

The farewell to everyone in the room feels distinctly tense. 

Clint is silent, looking haggard and guilty and worried out of his mind. Wanda is distraught, her desperation to never be separated from her brother seemingly viciously reignited. Natasha manages to soothe her, reminds her that Pietro won’t even be leaving the building and that he’ll be in good hands, and Steve and Tony both promise her that she can come up whenever she wants, can even come up and stay with them once they’ve got Pietro clean. Pietro won’t be kept from her, not ever, he just needs a lot of care and attention right now - and a quiet, homely environment - and Wanda, thankfully, seems to accept this. She kisses her brother’s forehead and speaks to him in their native tongue, managing to coax a hoarse, babbled response of gibberish but nothing more, and then she stands and watches with Natasha’s hands on her shoulder as Steve carries Pietro to the nearest private elevator.

Tony is close behind, gaze trained tensely on his phone, but he occasionally glances up to give Pietro some attention, smiling softly at him and cooing at him and generally just doing his best, by the look of it. He must be researching on his phone, looking up the best courses of action and advice and anything else helpful that the Internet can provide - if only there was a clear advice column for something like this.

Trial and error is the only thing that Steve can think of. Ideally without the ‘error’ part.

“At least he’s calm now,” he says softly, when Tony’s given his voice print and eye scan and whatever other sci-fi security measures he’s got guarding his private floors of the tower. Pietro is quiet and still in Steve’s arms, wet face pressed to the crook of Steve’s neck and shoulder, and Steve can’t decide if it’s because he’s truly that distraught or because he’s just that deep in regression right now.

He likes the second answer more than the first.

“I’ve had plenty of stuff delivered over the past couple days,” Tony says, holding a door open so that Steve can enter the open plan lounge area of Tony’s living space. It’s been noticeably cleaned up and baby-proofed since Steve was last here - no coffee mugs lying around, no whiskey bottles and empty glasses, no general clutter anywhere and everywhere, and far more pillows and blankets and even a playpen with a blue and grey play mat on the floor. There’s a few boxes piled up by one of the walls, but most seem as if they’ve been unpacked.

“Clothes and diapers and a crib and a high chair and a changing table and toys and blankets and—God knows what else,” Tony points vaguely at each of the boxes in turn, then the direction of wherever said item will have been placed, before gesturing broadly at the rest. “I’m prepared, is all I’m saying. We’re prepared. We’ve got...stuff. We’ve got this. All we have to do right now is give him a bath. Step one. Easy. Good. That’s good. Right, bud? You’re gonna be all clean. I know that sounds good.”

It’s not often that Steve hears Tony this clearly panicked, but he decides not to point it out - not now, at least. But there is one thing he can’t avoid bringing attention to. “It’s a good step one,” he agrees, “But it might not be easy.”

He adjusts his careful grip on Pietro just slightly, enough to bring attention to exactly how much his diaper has leaked, soaking a fair portion of his romper.

“God knows how long he’s been wet,” Steve says. “But I can guess that there’s gonna be a rash.”

Tony makes no effort to censor himself as he curses, dragging a hand harshly down his face.

“Okay,” he says. “That’s okay. That’s okay. It’s just a thing. And we’re gonna make it all better, little boy, yeah? We’re gonna get you clean and get some cream on you and get you into a dry diaper and then...then. I don’t know. Let’s—okay, let’s do this one step at a time for now.”

“One step at a time,” Steve repeats, tone placating, and Tony nods, muttering to himself as he speeds off in the direction of the bathroom. A moment later, a tap turns and water begins flowing, and Steve adjusts his grip on Pietro again to hold him closer, cradling him. It’s almost unnerving, seeing him so still and quiet - it’s almost difficult to connect this Pietro to the Pietro that Steve knows, the arrogant young man with the Enhanced abilities to just about back up all the trash he talks. 

Absently, he wonders what Pietro will be like at different ages - if he’ll be a bratty toddler, or if he’ll be shy and sweet in sharp contrast to his usual bravado. If he’ll be energetic and restless at around four or five, wanting to cling to Tony’s side and go on adventures and look at all of the cool robots hiding down in the labs, or if he’ll be the type to want to curl up by Steve’s side and read a nice book.

Maybe he’ll be a mix of everything. Maybe they’ll get to take him out, watch him bound around and be loud and rambunctious and then take him home to be cuddled and coddled and tucked into bed. Maybe he’ll stay like this, stay quiet and still and anxious and sad, and it’ll be a long, long process to draw him steadily out of his shell, but Steve is ready for it. 

They’ll have to talk about all of it. As soon as Pietro’s out of headspace, they’ll have to talk about it and ask him if he even _wants_ Steve and Tony to be his primary Caregivers in the long-term. Maybe he’ll want Clint - hell, maybe he’ll want Natasha and his sister.

But, for now, he is Steve and Tony’s baby, and, enveloped in the soft smell of lavender and the gentle embrace of steam emanating from the open bathroom door, Steve can taste a future happiness - a future peace - that he is content to let himself believe in.

“Now,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to Pietro’s hair, “Let’s get you nice and clean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the mcu: the twins are white  
> me, immediately throwing that out of a window: interesting
> 
> i know this fic is still very much kinda finding its footing, but please leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter/the fic so far! i love to hear what you all think ♡


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bath time. Pietro's trust is a fickle and fragile thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took A While, and for that i am sorry, but it's also long as shit and i am but a college student (though a fair chunk of this was written poolside while i was in spain), so please find it in your (incredibly, astoundingly loving hearts) to forgive me  
> deeply related: thank you all SO MUCH for the continued love on this fic!!! i've started getting long, detailed comments that make me so terrifyingly happy that i can't even respond to them, so, just so ya know, if you happen to write one of those, even if i don't respond, i've memorised the entire thing and cry about it on the daily.  
> but, like. in a cool and aloof way. you know? you know.
> 
> anyway! thank you all so much for your patience, i love you all so dearly - please enjoy! <3

Tony stresses about the water being too hot for so long that Steve starts to worry about the water being too _cold_. The large, almost startlingly modern bathtub is half-full with gently steaming water, tinted very slightly purple by the expensive lavender-scented baby bubble bath and fancy Epsom salt type product Tony’d poured in. It’s all nothing like Steve has ever seen before, certainly nothing like he’d had when he was young, but it smells nice and Pietro seems to be appreciating it, docile and relaxed in Steve’s arms.

By all accounts, everything is just about perfect - even though they had discovered a nasty diaper rash upon stripping Pietro, and noticed that he’s already looking rather emaciated from just a couple days with nothing but an IV drip as sustenance. Things at least feel far more okay now than they did back in the infirmary wing, and Steve is relieved that this feels real now - is relieved that he knows that he and Tony can take care of Pietro and make things better for him and make sure there’s not a single thing that could cause him any harm.

Still, it’s at the suggestion that Tony find a thermometer for the water that Steve finally loses his patience with this particular brandishing of the other man’s protectiveness. He steps forward and very carefully sets Pietro down in the water, ignoring Tony’s voiced protests and noises of panic, and then lets a rather pointed look come across his face when Pietro seems absolutely fine with the temperature of the water. He mumbles something slurred and half-formed in Sokovian, splashes his hand against the water almost gingerly, then flinches when it splashes up at him.

He looks confused, reaching out and grasping at the bubbles like he can hold them, and it makes Steve’s throat tighten just slightly as it seems that Pietro can’t quite comprehend the luxury of clean water and sweet-smelling soaps.

“Hey, little boy. You like the water?” Tony asks softly, crouching down beside Steve and reaching out for Pietro. He hovers in mid-air for a moment, gauging whether Pietro is okay with being touched now that he’s more aware of himself and his surroundings. When the boy doesn’t back away, he gently smoothes the dirty hair back from his face. “Figured it’d help you relax a little bit. Baths are good for that. But we also have to get you clean. You’re pretty gross right now, you know that?”

Pietro doesn’t seem to have the slightest idea, now that he’s out of the diaper that was brutalising his poor sore skin. Still, he doesn’t quite seem content, even if he’s calm. He seems lost, keeps touching the things around him - patting at the water, grasping at the edges of the tub, poking at the bottles of shampoo and body wash lined up against the wall to watch them wobble - and then he sinks into himself again, touching his own body like he’s trying to comprehend it.

Steve and Tony both let him for a little while, just watching him and trying to understand what it is that he’s feeling, until his blunt fingernails find a healing injury - a once-deep gash, now a scabbed-over scrape - on his arm, and begin scratching at it. Steve pulls him away from it immediately, as gently as possible, but Pietro still flinches backwards and makes some sort of clumsy move to shield his face. He says something in Sokovian, in the clumsy tone of a toddler attempting to imitate an adult, and Steve, releasing Pietro immediately, tries very hard not to think about how the boy must be used to that - used to forcing himself to speak, forcing out what must have been an apology of some sort, to appease whatever monsters watched over him in that HYDRA base.

“Hey, no, no, shh. It’s alright, kiddo,” he soothes, but it’s too late. Pietro’s head is lowered, his eyes anxiously gazing up at Steve from under his dark fan of lashes with a resigned sort of terror within them, and Steve recognises immediately that Pietro is expecting to be struck, to be dragged up by the arm, to be shoved under the water and held there until he starts choking.

Pietro repeats whatever he’d said the first time, this time in the distinct babble of a baby, and Steve gets up and leaves the room as fast as he can, ignoring whatever Tony calls after him.

☁︎

Pietro is more relaxed after Steve leaves. It hurts to think it, and Tony can’t imagine that Pietro is truly _afraid_ of Steve now, but he’s too vulnerable right now to really understand anything, least of all the complexities of what kind of arm grabs mean he’s just being pulled away from hurting himself, and what kind of arm grabs mean he’s about to be beaten unconscious. 

Everything must feel dangerous to him - everyone is just someone faceless and evil, ready to hurt him.

Tony doesn’t know if that’s a side effect. He knows sometimes Littles can’t retain memories between headspaces if they’ve been traumatised or are rejecting themselves, trying to separate the two parts of their mind, but is it possible that Pietro can’t recognise anyone at all, any of the Avengers? Are they all strangers?

No, that can’t be it. Pietro had reacted to them on the jet, had seemed to know them, and he’d certainly remembered his sister.

Maybe it’s just something that’ll get better with time - or, wishful thinking, go away when he’s not regressed as far and as unstably as he is right now. 

They just have to get through this first drop, get through Pietro being in this eternally tragic infant headspace, and then they can start working stuff out.

At the very least, Tony can appreciate Pietro being docile for the rest of his bath. He slowly relaxes more with each moment after Steve leaves, allows Tony to run a soft bathmit over his body and over the last remnants of his injuries acquired in the battle, which Tony’s been pulling the dressings off of one by one. The only ones that still really look like anything are the deep gash on his head he’d acquired when he’d fallen, the dark scab and discolouration visible through his fine white hair; the bruising from the blast he’d taken to the chest, blooming around his sternum in shades of purple and green and yellow; and a slight swell and bruising to his left ankle, where he must’ve twisted it or caught it somehow whilst running. They’re injuries which certainly would’ve been much worse - arguably straight up life-ending - on anyone else, and Tony feels a burst of bitter gratefulness for the secondary effects of those experiments, making Pietro resilient enough to survive his speeds, and resilient enough to survive a hell of a lot more.

“Okay, bud. Almost done,” Tony murmurs, understanding Pietro’s discontent even if he’s not being vocal about it, and he makes quick work of finishing up. Cleaning around the rash is the most difficult part, as Pietro finally gives in to his misery and writhes and whines and lashes out - until Tony meets the battle of washing Pietro’s hair. His curls are matted with god knows what, dirt and blood and grease, and Pietro seems terrified of his head going anywhere near the water.

Tony tries to use a cup to tip water over Pietro’s head, but that only earns him startled tears, and it’s not nearly enough to clean anything. He thinks about using the shower head, but he imagines that that will go down even worse. So what is he meant to do? He can’t leave the kid’s hair as it is now - any messier, and they’ll probably be forced to just cut it all off, and that’s _definitely_ not something that would go down well with Pietro once he’s out of headspace.

God. Steve is better at this stuff. Problem solving is Tony’s thing, yes, but not when it comes to _people_. He can’t be the one to decide which of two upsetting scenarios will be better or worse for someone else - especially when he doesn’t _know_ Pietro, not generally and not while he’s Little. He finds himself resenting every stiff interaction he’s had with the kid, every awkward and brief exchange of words, every glare filled with fury or gaze filled with exhausted grief.

Most of all - more than anything - however, he resents himself, even now as he leans over the edge of the bathtub and holds Pietro as best he can while the boy hiccups and cries, sucking on his thumb like it’s a lifeline.

“Alright,” Tony sighs, then raises his voice just a bit, enough to project his voice but not enough to startle Pietro. “Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“What do you need?”

The foreign voice certainly manages to catch Pietro’s attention, and Tony feels the boy jolt then stiffen in fear. Tony shushes him softly, presses a brief kiss to his temple, before he speaks again.

“Yeah, uh. I think I’m gonna need Wanda up here.”

**☁︎**

Wanda doesn’t drink coffee often. She usually favours tea, specifically the herbal blends that Natasha buys and shares with her, but she knows it would be impolite to refuse the mug of black coffee that Clint sets down on the table in front of her, though he looks absent-minded about it, like he’s on autopilot rather than being courteous.

The kitchen space feels pressingly silent. It’s usually one of the livelier spaces in the compound, always bright with the life of quiet chatter or a kettle boiling or the microwave humming, but right now it’s just Clint and Wanda and the occasional burst of awkward words spoken too quickly.

“You sure you’re alright?” Clint breaks the latest bout of silence by asking once again, because he’s been asking since Wanda stopped crying perhaps thirty minutes ago, and Wanda tries to smile as she nods.

“I’m alright,” she says, wondering if she sounds more or less convincing this time. “He’s being taken care of. I’m...That’s all I want.” But there’s a weight to her words, a weight they both understand - their simultaneous yearning that Pietro be their charge, instead of Steve and Tony’s. Selfish and outright dangerous as it may be, Wanda is already feeling the bitter absence of her brother, feeling it like she’d felt it when those bullets had hit him in Sokovia.

Back then, it hadn’t gone away for weeks. She’d lay beside him and held him every day - as a sister, not a Caregiver, not his Mama - and, eventually, the screaming in her chest had settled.

This is different, though. Because now Pietro isn’t just hurt, isn’t just helplessly out of her reach - he’s Little, and he’s overwhelmed, and he needs safety. He needs years’ worth of care which she hadn’t given him and still can’t give him, because she doesn’t know how to tape a diaper properly so it doesn’t chafe or leak, doesn’t know how to heat a bottle to the right temperature, doesn’t know how to cheer her baby up or feed him or get him to sleep because he’d never _let_ her and now he _needs_ her and _fuck_ she’s going to _scream_.

“You don’t look alright,” Clint says, and then he flinches as Wanda’s mug of lukewarm coffee bursts into a thousand shards, spilling all over the table in a bright spark of scarlet. She curses in her mother tongue, thinking about how she’d always be scolded for breaking things in her youth because they simply couldn’t afford replacements, and she stammers to remember the English words for ‘ _oh my god, I’m so sorry_ ’, but Clint doesn’t seem angry. He beats her to the roll of paper towels and calmly begins mopping up the mess, looking tired but somehow content, and it’s then that it clicks in Wanda’s head that this is him being a Caregiver - making up for his desperation to care for Pietro by caring for whatever else is in reach, even if that involves cleaning up the spilt coffee of another adult.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda says finally, failing to sound as American as she usually tries to as she watches dark liquid drip onto the clean tile floor. She thinks of the facility and swallows down a wave of nausea.

“‘S’alright,” Clint says easily, glancing up at her and giving her what seems to be a truly sincere smile, even weighed down as he is. “Your brother might be the baby now, but, hey, I still basically adopted the two of you, right? Nothing gets you out of being mom’d by Hawkeye. Not even a Caregiver Classification.”

It’s blessedly enough to pull a small peal of laughter from Wanda. She shakes her head and picks up the wet paper towels to throw them away, while Clint tries to somehow gather the tiny, sharp shards of the mug without injuring himself. 

“Here.” Clint steps back as another spark of scarlet glints before him, and then he watches as this glow, rather than crackling or bursting, envelopes the mess in a sheet of soft light and carries it carefully over to the bin.

“Impressive,” Clint commends her, looking once again very sincere even as he gives her a round of teasing applause, and Wanda smiles at him again.

“I’ve been practising,” she says, somewhat shyly, “With Steve. He is a very good teacher. Even...even though he doesn’t understand my powers, he is patient. He isn’t afraid, even when I break something. Or,” - she giggles somewhat ruefully at the remaining smears of coffee on the table - “When I explode something.”

Thankfully, Clint doesn’t look afraid either. He just returns her smile, and Wanda is about to sit down again when a voice comes down from...somewhere.

“Miss Maximoff? Mister Stark could do with a bit of help upstairs.”

She startles and blinks up at the ceiling for a moment, taking a while in her overtired state to recall the AI systems that Stark implements in his creations, before the words click suddenly in her head.

“Pietro is hurt?” she asks in a rush, panic blooming in her chest just the same as her powers bloom in the air. Clint stands to attention beside her, eyes suddenly bright and wide.

“Mister Maximoff is fine,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. assures. “Mister Stark is just struggling with bathtime. Your expertise may well prove useful.”

Wanda briefly thinks to argue that she doesn’t _have_ expertise caring for her brother, particularly not bathing him when he’s so young, but she feels foolish speaking to the ceiling at all, let alone bickering with it. She wants to just rush off, wants to find her brother because she is too tired, too muddled, to find their connection in her mind, but she hesitates for a long moment, glancing back at her companion and swallowing down any old knowledge of what making _requests_ earns her.

“Can...can Clint come with me?”

There is a pause, presumably as the AI relays the question to Tony, before they receive an affirmative response. A moment later, sole remaining coffee cup abandoned, Wanda and Clint are making a beeline to the private elevator and receiving the security’s clearance to be allowed into Tony’s private quarters. Wanda has never seen them before, has never seen the vast majority of the compound, as her time in the HYDRA facility had taught her that it is never worth it to venture past where she knows she is allowed to go. Pietro had never learnt the same lesson, had always snuck out and gone wandering whenever he found the opportunity - running as fast as his battered feet would carry him, which was quite fast indeed after the experiments began to work - and he had always been dragged back, drugged and beaten and then bound and confined.

Letting her mind wander as the elevator climbs, Wanda can still hear him screaming. Can still hear the dull thuds and pained, panicked cries from the next cell over or down the hall - the sound of metal furniture scraping against the stone floors as he ran and threw himself against each wall, sometimes in reckless aggression and sometimes in a genuine loss of control, an inability to hold back or comprehend his new abilities, new powers, because those promises they’d been given - of strength, of power - could’ve never conjured expectations of _this_.

They certainly could’ve never led Wanda to expect that, someday, she would be travelling up in an elevator to Tony Stark’s private living space with any intention other than murder.

Although, she is not certain that she will be able to hold back old urges if she discovers that Stark has brought harm to her brother in any way.

“Hey. It’s alright,” Clint says quietly, as if sensing her thoughts. Perhaps he can - she knows she doesn’t have full control over how she projects her emotions or steps into people’s heads. “Look, Cap’s up there, too. You trust him, right?”

Wanda does not want to respond, because she is truly unsure if she trusts _anybody_ , but Clint is looking at her and she doesn’t want to be cold with Steve, a man who has done his best with her right from the start. She nods shallowly, just once, and then focuses her attention solely forwards as the glass doors finally slide open.

She is surprised to be met immediately with the sight of Steve, stood visible through the half-wall seemingly leading to a kitchen area in the luxurious, open-plan living space.

Truly, Stark’s apartment is a picture of wealthy arrogance. The clear presence of _money_ is visible in all parts of the Compound, of course, but never in such a clear way as the leather sofas and almost overwhelmingly large curved screen television occupying what must serve as the lounge here. There is art on the walls, brief splashes of colour in the monochrome colour palette, and signs of modern living that Wanda still can not comprehend - that almost any citizen of Sokovia would not be able to comprehend. It makes anger spark within her, a bitterness she’d thought had left her gradually in the time she’s spent at Stark’s side, but it flickers to confusion when she notices other details in the space.

First of all, the piles of boxes scattered around, some of which have been opened and unpacked while others are still taped closed. There are blankets and cushions on the expensive leather sofas, that Wanda can somehow recognise weren’t here until recently. There are plush carpets underfoot covering the hardwood floors, including a large one spanning almost the entirety of the lounge area, and, as Wanda looks closer at some of the end tables and details that look somehow bare, she realises that there is not a single breakable or potentially dangerous thing in sight. No vases or glass or anything sharp or heavy, not even a knife block in the kitchen. The only thing near the edge of the counters at all is a baby bottle and a box of formula, which Steve seems to be partway through measuring out.

“Wanda?” he says, with a small degree of confusion but ultimately his usual welcoming nature when it comes to her. There’s something like insincerity in it, though - something a little bit tired, a little bit cold. “Is something wrong?”

His confusion seems to increase when he walks around the half-wall and sees Clint, still stood in the elevator doorway. 

“Tony called us up,” Clint explains, when Wanda fails to do so. She’s lost in her head for a few long moments, trying to wrap her head around her own emotions and the emotions of others, all the while trying to find her and her brother’s connection in her mind and growing more and more frustrated when it keeps slipping through her fingers. Desperately, she reaches out to him like she used to in the facility, when there were countless walls of steel and concrete between them and neither could see straight through the drugs and the beatings, but she doesn’t scream this time. Doesn’t beg her older brother to come to her, to protect her somehow, in the sheer childish desperation of exhaustion and pain.

Instead, she calls out to her baby brother like he’s lost. Reaches out in the hopes that he’ll rush into arms. And she is met quickly with the silvery-blue rush of his presence, completely different now to how it’s been since her powers manifested it for her. Usually, his spirit is like a rock, solid and stable even when it whisps into smoke as he runs, but right now it’s so weak she can barely feel it.

He’s tired. He’s scared. He’s so _young_ , and Wanda doesn’t hesitate for even a moment before she is rushing after his presence, ignoring Steve and Clint and any anxious politeness or courtesy she usually confines herself to, thinking - just like she’d used to back then - that any punishment in the world is worth getting to see her brother, even if just for a moment.

☁︎

Pietro has been crying for longer than he can remember. A quiet, half-asleep part of his brain is trying to tell him that he shouldn’t be, that crying is pathetic - that the hoarse little whimpers he can’t help but let out, face pressed to this man’s neck, are more so - but he can’t stop. He’s tired, tired like he can’t understand, and everything _hurts_. Breathing makes the bruises across his chest, the remaining twinges in his once-cracked ribs, ache like he can’t bear. His ankle throbs every time he moves it. There’s scratches and scabs all over him, and he can’t understand it. He wants to touch them again, wants to pull and scratch at the damaged skin like the mindless craving of addiction, but the blond man had gotten angry with him the last time he’d done that, and he doesn’t want this other man to get angry with him too, though he doesn’t know quite why he’s so afraid beyond some deep-set knowledge that anger means he will get hurt. Hurt a lot.

At any rate, this man is nice - too nice to hurt him, surely. He’s been holding Pietro for what feels like ages, just soothingly rubbing the nice-smelling water up his back as he shakes and cries and whispers and whines, and he hasn’t gotten angry once. He keeps saying words in a language that Pietro thinks he knows but can’t quite manage to fully wrap his head around. Sometimes he understands some of the words, but he can’t hold onto any of them - can’t echo them effectively, no matter how hard he tries.

The other language, the one he really knows, is easier. He can say a few words, he thinks, even though they don’t come out like he thinks they’re supposed to. It’s still something, and the man looks happy when he manages to say things even though he doesn’t seem to understand any of them at all.

Pietro doesn’t mind, not really. The water is nice and being held feels good, really really really good, even with the slight scariness of unfamiliarity surrounding it. There’s an unfamiliarity surrounding _all_ of this, though he’s sure the men aren’t strangers. He knows them, he trusts them, he knows they’re kind and good people, but this feeling in his head feels like something new. The space doesn’t feel like anywhere he’s been before, but his mind understands it as _something_.

It’s like he’s deep underwater, listening to his thoughts as words spoken on the surface. Like he’s trapped in a certain part of his mind, encased in frosted glass, unable to discern or reach out for the vague thoughts and understanding and recognition on the other side. It should be scary, he thinks. He should feel terrified, should feel like a caged animal, scratching and hitting and screaming at the sides of his cage, and parts of him do, parts of him are, but the rest just feels secure. Feels _safe_ , safe to cry and lay uselessly while this man takes care of him, even when those calloused hands pass over places that hurt so much it makes Pietro’s stomach churn.

There are painful memories, just out of reach. Memories of hands making him hurt, poking and prodding and scraping at injuries inflicted with seemingly no intention but to make them hurt _worse_ , but this is different. This man murmurs what Pietro recognises as apologies with each touch that hurts, balances them all out with a gentleness that Pietro also recognises.

Wanda.

His sister’s presence fills his mind like fire, a warm glow of scarlet that crackles and shudders. He can’t understand her feelings, can’t even understand his own, but the sheer familiarity of her being _there_ makes her realise that she hasn’t been since—

Since whatever happened. Whenever he started feeling like this. He can’t remember. He’s not sure he wants to.

Part of him just wants to stay here. Stay in this man’s arms, being washed forever, where he doesn’t have to think or feel or change. Meeting new people means experiencing, means understanding, means learning, means that this comfort might end and all of the hurting might start again, but Pietro’s growing fear comes with a sudden desperation that has him reaching out for his sister’s presence in his mind faster than he can understand.

He writhes in Tony’s arms — Tony? Tony! — and reaches an arm out towards the door, just slightly ajar since Steve — _Steve_ — had left.

“ _Sister_ ,” he manages to get out in clumsy Sokovian, but he can tell that Tony doesn’t understand. He looks distressed, confused, starts petting Pietro’s tangled hair as if trying to soothe him and says English words that Pietro can’t understand. His thoughts are all Sokovian, babbling blindly at his sister’s presence in his mind until finally the door flies open and she’s stood there, eyes already bright with tears.

“Pietro!”

Some sort of understanding seems to light up in Tony’s face as Wanda rushes into the room, and he lets go with no hesitation to allow Pietro to be scooped up into his sister’s arms instead. 

“ _Baby brother_ ,” she mutters softly, adoringly, pressing kisses to his face as if she’s missed him terribly as he presses herself over the edge of the bath to hold him tightly to her chest. Pietro’s heart thumps, relaxed and overjoyed by the sound of his native tongue, by the familiarity of Wanda, even as parts of his mind scream _‘Mama'_ and others scream _‘little sister’_ with a desperation, an aggression, that he can’t understand, pulling him in different directions sharply enough to make his thoughts blur into oblivion again. 

☁︎

Watching Wanda coo in a language Tony doesn’t understand, holding Pietro like she’s terrified of ever letting go of him again, is a sight enough to make Tony’s eyes sting. For a while - just a few moments, really - Pietro had seemed almost coherent. His eyes had looked like _Pietro_ , like the boy who always tries to claw himself back to composure no matter what he‘s been through, but it had quickly been drowned by the haze of deep headspace again.

On the one hand, Tony almost hopes that Pietro will push through it like he clearly - on some subconscious level - _wants_ to, desperately. Just so they can talk about this. So he can understand what Pietro wants, what Pietro needs, but a more reasonable part of him recognises that Pietro doesn’t _know_ what he needs - or simply has no regard for it. Otherwise he would’ve accepted his sister’s help years ago, would’ve let himself slip into headspace as soon as he felt that first real tug, and they wouldn’t be in this situation.

But, as Tony reminds himself once again, there’s no point in considering what _could’ve_ happened anymore. It’s a way of avoiding the truth, avoiding the stress and fear of reality and what the future of it may hold, and it’s not helpful. It’s avoidance, and avoidance will hurt Pietro more than anything else. Avoidance is what brought them here. So it’s time to look at the here and now and maybe ahead, in the few moments it doesn’t make Tony’s heart clench the way it usually does in the prelude to a panic attack.

“Uh,” he says, somewhat stiffly, but it’s enough to make Wanda raise her head from where she’d been scattering kisses all over Pietro’s face and seemingly deeply enjoying the fact that he wasn’t pulling away. “Sorry. Don’t mean to...y’know, interrupt. But the water’s probably getting cold and I need to get his hair washed and get him dressed and then he needs to eat and he also definitely needs to sleep and I know none of that’s gonna be easy but—”

“—You need to wash his hair.”

Tony practically screeches to a halt, unused to Wanda interrupting him quite so boldly. He nods finally, somewhat meekly, to what was barely a question, and Wanda gives him a very soft smile. Her gaze is still wary, it always is around him, but there’s a warmth in her gaze, surely influenced by the way her brother’s got one wet hand gripping the front of her shirt and his face resting against her collarbone.

“Yes,” she says softly. “I’ll help you.”

From there, it’s almost smooth sailing. Pietro is completely relaxed with his sister, exactly how he isn’t with Steve or Tony, and he - once Tony makes a show of backing away - allows her to pull him back into the water and get his hair wet. Wanda then gives Tony a look, something somehow both sharp and encouraging, and he settles back down beside the bath to very gently rub baby shampoo into Pietro’s curls, carefully avoiding healing injury on his scalp and feeling confidence curl within him when Pietro relaxes under his hands, eyes slowly drooping. 

They shampoo his hair twice, just to be safe, and then Tony cards conditioner through it, admiring how Pietro’s hair quickly turns silky again, all dirt and blood gone to reveal the silvery-white that the boy detests. Absently, Tony remembers the photo he’d seen the night Pietro dropped, the post-experiment photo by HYDRA that showed Pietro with rich brown curls to match his sister’s, and he - for the first time - feels as if he can understand, feels as if he can relate. He knows a thing or two about hating parts of himself, particularly the parts that hang over him as permanent reminders of awful times passed, and, God, there have been some awful times.

Someday, they may well look back on this as awful times - bittersweet, in the best-case scenario. But for now, they’re just the times, and there’s sweetness to be found in them as Tony rises and hands over a towel to Wanda to hold out. She does so, and Tony lifts Pietro from the bathtub with all the care in the world, hushing him gently when he makes a weak noise of vague distress. 

“It’s alright,” Tony murmurs, just as Wanda says something in Sokovian that must mean just the same, and Pietro is quiet as he is bundled in the large, soft towel. His hair is hanging in his face, a mess like Tony’s never seen him in before, and he sees something else new when Wanda leans in and kisses her brother’s nose, and earns herself the softest, sweetest smile, shared between the twins like a secret.

For that single moment, he feels like he’s intruding. Like this whole thing is something sacred, and he’s just a temporary stepping stone between the siblings, until Wanda can take care of Pietro like she so clearly wants to.

But then Pietro turns in Tony’s arms, clutches the damp fabric of his shirt in a weak fist, and nuzzles his head against Tony’s shoulder like there’s no place he’d rather be than right here. And Tony, lump in his throat, presses a kiss to those clean, wet curls and feels love burn in his chest like fire.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! ♥︎   
> please leave a comment if you enjoyed - and let me know if you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see happen, or any particular characters you’d like to see involved!


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